I'm mildly disturbed by the misuse of the word, so I'd figure I'd make a thread where we can all discuss what it means, both connotatively and denotatively.

Denotatively, Literary Irony is a conscious act on the part of the speaker or writer, by which they convey a semantic meaning that contradicts the more apparent one.  Dramatic Irony, as employed by Shakespeare, in which the audience sees impending doom while the character does not. Situational Irony, where the results or reactions are otherwise than originally expected.

So...  when you use the word irony, what are you attempting to convey?

Your perception little boy.  While you're allowed to have it, I don't have to agree with you.

People say things like "I detect irony" and the like in snarkiness.  It's basically said to someone to say, hey you know you've just contradicted yourself. 

Perhaps we should say, "I hope that's irony," instead?

I like the way people use it. It's more... interesting than the official use. ^_^

Maybe we should make up a new word to use instead, for that-thing-people-call-irony-but-isn't.

I've seen the term "cosmic irony" to refer to one of the "inappropriate" uses. I am ill-prepared to explain it, though.

There's no such thing as the wrong use of a word.  I'm sorry for the misunderstanding.  Hard to type while feeding baby.

The purpose of this thread, at least what I'd intended it to be, was to construct a connotative (how everyone thinks it should be used and uses it) definition of the word.

Why, precisely, is an agreed-upon definition of the word necessary?  If we come up with a 'Zetachannel connotative meaning for irony' then we just end up having to explain it to new people, like 'sex vs. PIV sex' or 'virginity', and it's just another hidden rule we use to separate the people who 'belong' in our community from those who don't (I'm all about the social notion of hidden rules these days, and the concept fascinates me).

I guess I'm not entirely sold on the need for a consensual meaning for a specific word, especially not one which (though it has standard literary applications and definitions) has a fairly fluid usage in common English.

I'm all for exploring the meaning of a word and how it's used.  But it seems that in the past we have, as a group, demonstrated a remarkable aptitude for 'redefining' a certain word through that exploration, and instead of explaining to new members the reasons why they might want to explore the meaning of a word, it turns into, "Here this word means X, not what you think it means, because we are better and more evolved," and when it becomes that, it stops being about understanding how and why we use language, but about using it to foster elitism and firm up the barriers between 'them' and 'us'.

Enlighten me?

<sighs>  I'm sorry.  There is no need for a consensus on what any one word means.   I thought it would be interesting if everyone defined what they meant by irony, so we could examine said word.

I had no intention of creating a solid, this is what this word means and you must now accept it.  Especially since I don't think that works very often, does it?

Fae also communicates at right angles to the rest of us sometimes. :-)

Commonly called irony: saying something you know is obviously wrong because it's clever or amusing.  Or hypocrisy.

May be I'm once again displaying my literal-minded bias, but I use the word irony to express the perception that things are not what they are said to be or what they seem, or as Wikipedia currently puts it, "the notion of incongruity, or a gap between our understanding and what actually happens". Whether that is situational, dramatic, or verbal irony is secondary to me. I also generally use it to express incongruity as long as I find some humour in it.